Bad Words (2014)

The actor Jason Bateman’s directorial debut starts with the promise of a smart, edgy comedy. Exploiting a technicality in the rulebook of the Golden Quill Spelling Bee, 40-year-old Guy Trilby (Bateman) forces his way into a regional competition. Armed only with a sharp tongue (and possibly an eidetic memory), he mercilessly slaughters his pre-teen competition by both inciting them to mistakes and spelling all his own words correctly. Upon winning the competition and qualifying for nationals, he hightails it out of the building to the getaway car driven by his blogger sponsor Jenny Widgeon (Kathryn Hahn), in it for the first-hand scoop but still affronted at an angry parent’s reaction to his victory. Read the full review here.